Free Republic

Most Americans back the Supreme Court's decisions to legalize same sex marriage and to protect federal exchange subsidies Americans approve of the two major decisions made by the Supreme Court last week, but they continue to view the two issues differently: there is majority support for a national right to same-sex marriage, but Americans in the latest Economist/YouGov Poll are still not convinced that the Affordable Care Act is working or is the right thing for the country. Americans support the Court’s decision in King v. Burwell that those who purchased health insurance on the federal exchange could still receive...

The ink on the Supreme Court’s lawless decree that God’s law aganst sodomy is null and void is scarcely dry but the Gaystopo has not taken a day off. They are pressing the fight and will continue to do so until either they or the Catholic Church in America have been defeated. Emboldened by the realization that they own the Supreme Court, the Gaystopo, as predicted here, are turning every screw they can to mock Catholic doctrine and press their attack. Now they have a new partner, the National Broadcasting Network (NBC) which has slithered out of the closet. In...

Oh. Well, my mistake then. Yesterday I thought he was saying something racist.What did this guy think his critics were accusing him of, if this is his “clarification”? A few fans have written wondering whether I intended to utter a racist remark by referring to Justice Thomas as a “clown in blackface.”“Blackface” is a lesser known theatrical term for a white actor who blackens his face to play a black buffoon. In traditional theater lingo, and in my view and intent, that is not racist. It is instead part of a racist history in this country.I feel Justice Thomas...

With same-sex marriage now legal in all 50 states, pro-gay activists are shifting their focus to issues like alleged workplace, housing and public accommodations discrimination. Some have even proposed stripping churches of their tax-exempt status and legalizing polygamous marriage. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists view the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage “as a means to a greater end,” said Jon Akin, pastor of Fairview Church in Lebanon, Tenn. – “a huge means, but I certainly don’t think it’s the end. I think many will not be happy” if the advance of gay rights “doesn’t go further.” Akin,...

...Americans still loyal to the premises of right and justice must emphatically reject this decision. They must refuse to submit to it, just as in colonial times America’s first patriots refused to submit to British taxes imposed without regard for the will of legislatures elected by the people... The Obergefell decision is a more directly treasonous betrayal of constitutional law and justice than any of those previous acts of tyranny. As ratified by the American people, the U.S. Constitution derives its authority from their sovereign will. In the Declaration of Independence they cite the authority of “the laws of nature...

FULL TITLE: Left-wing mayor of Madrid plans to rename Plaza currently dedicated to Margaret Thatcher after Socialist gay rights activist Spain's Left-wing Mayor has said she is planning to rename a Plaza currently dedicated to Margaret Thatcher after a former Socialist Party leader and gay rights activist. Manuela Carmena, who took over from Madrid's former conservative mayor in May, said Thatcher's name was inappropriate because she was 'the Iron Lady who enslaved the workers'. Her announcement comes just ten months after Mark Thatcher was invited to the Spanish capital to name the plaza after his mother and the former British...

A Catholic school in Macon, Ga., is facing a federal discrimination lawsuit from a former teacher whose employment was terminated in 2014 after the school found that he would be legally marrying his same-sex partner. “The argument being made in this suit—that a Catholic school’s commitment to upholding Catholic teaching on marriage is discriminatory toward homosexual employees—is a grave threat to Catholic education,” said Patrick Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society. “A Catholic school exists for the very purpose of teaching the faith and forming young people for God,” he continued. “The implication is that our religion itself, rooted...

Pro-life regulations in Texas, North Carolina, Kansas and Iowa have been stymied in court challenges. Affected are a Texas law requiring abortion clinics to qualify as ambulatory surgical centers and for abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges; a North Carolina law requiring doctors to show pregnant women ultrasound images before performing an abortion; a Kansas law banning dismemberment abortions; and an Iowa Board of Medicine ban on “webcam” abortions. Texas The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a stay of House Bill 2, which was slated to go into effect July 1, until the justices can consider whether to...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky has filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Rowan County couples, two same-gender couples and two opposite-gender couples, denied marriage licenses by County Clerk Kim Davis, a press release from the ACLU confirms. Davis is standing firm on her decision to stop issuing marriage licenses, despite dozens of protesters who gathered outside the courthouse. "My conscience will not allow me to issue a license for a same sex couple," says Kim Davis, "because I know that God ordained marriage from the very foundation of this world to be between a man and a...

Joel Osteen, the popular 52-year-old leader of America's largest protestant church, Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, bluntly revealed that the reason why he avoids speaking out on hot button social and political issues, such as same-sex marriage, is because he believes that's not what he's called to do as a pastor. In a recent interview on WBUR's "Here & Now" radio program Osteen, who was asked if he felt these hot button social and political issues are important, said: "I think they are important but I think everybody has their own calling." He further explained that "It's not what I'm...

I wonder what took them so long. Three business days after the Obergefell decision that recognized same-sex marriage as a constitutional right, Nathan Collier decided to demand that the Montana state government recognize that love is love … is love. And if they don’t issue a marriage license to formally recognize his plural arrangement, Collier says he intends to sue: A Montana man said Wednesday that he was inspired by last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to apply for a marriage license so that he can legally wed his second wife.Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria...

From Ed Peters, distinguished canonist, on Catholic SCOTUS Justices (Kennedy, Sotomayor) who ruled for Obergefell v. Hodges: Obergefell and canonical criminal lawDcn Greg Kandra calls attention to a question floating around out there, namely, [QUAERITUR…]should Catholic justices who voted to impose “same-sex marriage” on America be excommunicated? We can deal with most of that question pretty quickly.Excommunication can impact any Catholic (there are no exemptions for those in high civil office), but it can be incurred only for twelve specifically delineated crimes (CLSA Comm. 932, not counting a couple of excommunicable crimes listed outside the Code). Now, voting to impose...

It was a difficult marriage from the beginning. Its success was largely regional and state by state. But where it worked, it worked well, mainly the South and parts of the West. They papered over their differences for years. Now they've grown apart and a messy divorce looms. It wasn't exactly a shotgun marriage. The Wall Street/Koch Brothers crowd gleefully accepted the support of Tea Party and evangelical leaders, as long as austerity, high-end tax cuts and deregulation were part of the agenda. The cultural right needed money and legitimacy. Everybody got along. No more. The split was thrust into...

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling forcing every state to recognize same-sex marriage has inspired a New York Times post by David Leonhardt and Alicia Parlapiano, exploring why increasing public acceptance of homosexuality hasn’t been accompanied by increasing acceptance of abortion. This is a question we’ve explored here before too, and they come to basically the same conclusion: while the case against same-sex marriage is somewhat abstract and gay causes tend to have an edge with Americans’ live-and-let-live sensibilities, the fact that abortion has a specific victim means an “unavoidable tension between a mother’s rights and a fetus’s” can never be...

... Findings from PRRI's American Values Atlas, which draws on 40,000 interviews among a random sample of Americans, provides the most in-depth portrait to date of attitudes on same-sex marriage by religious affiliation. ... All Americans [percentages]... Strongly Favor 25 Favor 29 Oppose 18 Strongly Oppose 20 White Evangelical Protestant [Baptist, Methodist, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Church of Christ]... Strongly Favor 10 Favor 18 Oppose 27 Strongly Oppose 39 White Mainline Protestant [Baptist, Methodist, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Church of Christ]... Strongly Favor 28 Favor 34 Oppose 16 Strongly Oppose 14 ...

Donald Trump has admitted his views on gay marriage are 'evolving', however, the property mogul claimed that he is still a strong supporter of traditional marriage between a man and woman. Speaking to openly gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts, the billionaire said that his views on the subject are different to what they were 10 years ago and pointed to President Obama coming out in support of same-sex marriage. In Moscow as the co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, Trump attended Saturday night's pageant along with Roberts, who openly criticized Russia's anti-gay laws. Evolving: Donald Trump has claimed that he...

This past weekend has been heady one for our friends on the soft-core left. Without ever attending a meeting, let alone a march, or even making a donation, they got to celebrate Obergefell v. Hodges as if it were V-J day. These are the same people, of course, who protested not a peep in 1996 when Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, the same people who voted giddily for Barack Obama in 2008 despite his avowed support for traditional marriage, the same people who cannot wait until their next water cooler encounter to dress down some...

ANTHONY KENNEDY, in his majority ruling legalising same-sex marriage nationwide, tried to allay the concern that polygamy would be next. John Roberts, in his dissent, said he couldn't see a principled way of opening the door to same-sex couples without also letting polygamists through. Who's right? Is legal polygamy next? Should it be? Jonathan Rauch, who wrote this newspaper's ahead-of-the-curve 1996 cover piece advocating same-sex marriage, has plenty of experience in keeping people off this slippery slope. According to Mr Rauch, the problem with a man marrying two women (we don't see many real-world examples of polyandry, a women with...

An image many call provocative, if not offensive, has caused an uproar on social media platforms since last week. The photo, taken by gay artist Ed Freeman of young men holding up a rainbow flag, replicates the iconic picture of Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising the American flag at Iwo Jima in 1945. The Washington Post decided to highlight the controversy July 1 and let the artist defend himself. Freeman told the Post that the image originally for a cover of the gay magazine, Frontiers, was taken over ten years ago. After the Supreme Court ruling last week, someone...

Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria and Christine applied at the Yellowstone County Courthouse in Billings on Tuesday in an attempt to legitimize their polygamous marriage. Montana, like all 50 states, outlaws bigamy — holding multiple marriage licenses — but Collier said he plans to sue if the application is denied.